OBS! The event is fully booked.

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In connection with the exhibition Bugs & Metamorphosis: Glitching Photography at the Hasselblad Center, the Hasselblad Foundation and Skogen welcome you to an evening of performances where we focus on the glitch, the bug and technology. 

Bugs & Metamorphosis: Glitching Photography is an exhibition that explores “bugs” in two intriguing ways: both as technical glitches and as tiny creatures, insects. From digital mishaps to insect-inspired art, the works challenge our understanding of photography and technology. The group exhibition at the Hasselblad Center reveals how glitches can disrupt and question systems of knowledge, classification, and control. Bugs appear both as real creatures—moths, flies, bees, and other insects—and as technical malfunctions with themes like swarming, webbing, symbiosis, and extinction. 

During the evening at Skogen, Clare Strand, Sheung Yiu, and Olle Essvik, all of whom are part of the exhibition, will each do a performative presentation. These relate in different ways to the double meaning of “bugs” both as technical glitches and as insects.

After the performance program, Skogen invites everyone to participate in a communal dinner, where the audience and participants can continue the conversations and share their thoughts on the evening’s events.

TIME: Friday March 20, 19.00 ­– ca. 22.00 (inkl. dinner)

PLACE: Skogen, Masthuggsterrassen 3

PARTICIPANTS:
Clare Strand (UK)

Sheung Yiu (FI/HK)

Olle Essvik (SE)

As there are a limited number of seats available, you can make a free reservation at Skogen’s website HERE.

Each performance/lecture is around 20 minutes long. The event is free of charge and will be held in English.

PROGRAM

Clare Strand
Clare Strand is a UK-based artist who works with, but mostly against the photographic medium. Over the past 25 yrs, she has made work with found imagery, kinetic machinery, web programmes, fairground attractions and most recently, large-scale paintings and chamber music. She often rejects the default settings of the photographic medium and instead and without apology, welcomes a subtle, slow-burn, approach. Her practice is situated somewhere between control and a willful acceptance of chance.

In this performance, Strand will explore the concept of “the glitch” through a collection of short stories. These informal narratives will examine how malfunctions both intentional and accidental, have manifested in her work, shaping not only her artistic practice but also her life outlook.

Sheung Yiu
Since 2019, Sheung Yiu has been working with remote sensing researchers in Finland — following them on field trips to forest plots, and interviewing them about their ‘forest reflectance model’ — a statistical model used to interpret satellite imagery.  Researchers use this model to retrieve information from low-resolution satellite imagery, inferring details about the landscape beyond what is immediately visible on the image. This entails a statistical and probabilistic way of seeing where the task of interpreting an image is increasingly deferred to the machine.

In this performative lecture, he will take the audience on a desktop tour through folders of scientists’ datasets. Interweaving archives, photographic artworks, and exhibition documentation, the talk will explore how to see the invisible while reflecting on a computer-aided vision that is becoming ever more abstract.

Olle Essvik

Olle Essvik is an artist and teacher working and living in Gothenburg. He works with themes relating to the digital and technology in a human context, touching on notions of everyday life, repetition, and time. The outcome could be a book, a publication, or a sculpture in which traditional materials and techniques like wood and bookbinding converge with programming and code.

In a number of artworks, the visual artist Olle Essvik has taken an interest in insects, bookworms that eat books, electronics as anatomy, and robots whose actions in a way resemble the apparently primitive abilities of insects. In this performance/lecture, The Silverfish Ballet, Essvik will focus on the Silverfish and its life, history and relation to humans. The lecture will be a mixture of animation, text and physical exploration.

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Image credits: Ground Truth, 2019-2024. Sheung Yiu. Courtesy of the artist.